


freak

by mymphr



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: ??? - Freeform, Bullying, M/M, Name-Calling, Transphobia, idk something like that, teenage bab newt memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-06-03 03:27:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6594763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mymphr/pseuds/mymphr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>it hit a nerve that never felt the same again. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>---</p>
<p> </p>
<p>a sort of memory based oneshot. newt got fucked over a lot as a teenager. it still stings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	freak

**Author's Note:**

> using they/them pronouns throughout because newt is Always trans/genderfluid in my fics but usually i just use he/him for ease and 'cause i think newt wouldn't mind anyway, but i wanted to use they/them here because... why not. 
> 
> wrote this literally just now and haven't even read over it but it's half past midnight and i'm in a frenzy

the first time it happens, they just keep walking, brain desperately trying to process what just happened, hands twitching in their pockets and face contorted into a strange smile. it was unexpected, yet something in their stomach clicked into place like it was what they’d been waiting for for years. 

a mop of off-green hair, trailing into their eyes - newt was walking, fast, down the high street. their earphones in one ear, against me! quietly giving them the confidence they required to walk anywhere alone (and later, when the lead singer would come out as trans, newt would listen to them on repeat for hours on end, her voice becoming the single most important voice in their world). tartan jeans, denim jacket, patches haphazardly sewn into everything they owned (they’d sew patches into their skin, if they thought they could); just the way they liked it. 

no one, no one, in this shitty town, smiled back when smiled at. it made newt bitter, grinning at everyone they locked eyes with, daring them to smile back. a boy, almost cute, but clothes too grey and generic to be interesting - something close to a smile in response, and newt allowed it to satisfy them. but in the split second that they passed each other, newt heard - loud and clear - “freak.” 

they kept walking. 

the word spiralled in their head. it was not enough to destroy their 18 year old ego, not now, not after years of assuming everyone around them would want to beat the shit out of them, but it felt strange. dancing through the cracks in their brain, trying to find the thing that would set off someone’s freak alarm - “what is it today, fellas - is it the hair, the jeans, the piercings, the patches, the fact you can’t tell if i’m a boy or a girl? which bit’s freaking you out?” they almost laughed imagining asking someone that. 

newt toyed with their septum piercing, waiting at a bus stop to travel further into unknown towns. they weren’t scared of insults. they weren’t scared of fights, or attacks, being mugged or hurt or beaten - it was all stuff they’d expected since the age of about 12. and yet. somehow, that word, ‘freak’, settled in their heart, and they could never pick it out. 

——

hermann was almost being lifted off his feet, his wrists hooked through newt’s elbows, holding them back. newt’s feet pushed against the floor, dragging hermann forward, setting off a twinge in his leg. 

“newton!” he cried, pain in his voice, “stop this. stop it now.” he could feel the tension through newt’s biceps, their pulse running too fast, their skin too hot. it was different than their fights. different from newt’s usual calm, collected sarcasm. it set off something panicky in hermann’s mind. he gripped newt’s elbows tighter, squeezing gently, something he hoped was comforting. newt dropped their head to look at the ground, breathing heavy, and hermann felt their guard drop for just a second. he seized the moment - “newton. it’s okay.” he felt newt relax, reluctantly, in his arms, and grumble something incoherent. 

hermann looked up at the man stood in front of them. he didn’t even know his name - tom, or something like that. he was wide eyed, an eyebrow raised, watching newt with something akin to amusement in his expression. there was a snarl in hermann’s voice when he told him to leave. he did. quickly. 

as he left, closing the door behind him, hermann let newt go. they didn’t move, body wilted like a dying sunflower, eyes on the ground. their body moved only with their heavy breathing, a gentle shake in each exhale. hermann placed a hand on their back, soft. “newt.” he spoke, almost a whisper. 

newt looked up, and there were tears in their eyes, and their face was too red, and hermann felt his heart sink. “oh, newt.” he muttered, his other hand finding newt’s shoulder and squeezing it. 

——

there were no tissues in the lab, only weird blue absorbent stuff for wiping up bits of kaiju, so newt settled for that. their eyes were more red after rubbing it on them, but at least it gave them an excuse. 

hermann was sat across from them, watching them intently. newt felt like a science experiment. gone very wrong, most likely. 

“sorry for losing it. like, properly.” 

“i’m sure you have your reasons.” 

they were silent again. newt shifted in their seat, uncomfortable. 

“he just - i don’t know. hit a nerve. it…” they sighed, tucking their feet underneath them. “just a normal argument about kaiju and all that, right? and you always do your kaiju groupie thing, and that’s fine ‘cause it’s kinda sweet somehow, but then he’s getting all weird and like, extra angry about it. and i get it, they’ve killed people, and it’s bad, but our job is to investigate them.” newt’s voice was getting shaky, hands gesturing wildly with every sentence. “and i know i started getting personal first - honestly the frosted tips kinda worked on him - but then he - he started just. i don’t know.” they took a breath. 

“he called you a freak.” 

“yeah.” 

more silence. it was heavy, hermann quietly desperate for an explanation, but never about to ask for one. 

“i mean, i get it. he’s this nice little british boy - no offence - who’s all used to black and whites, good and evil, and he comes in here and the guy who’s meant to be figuring out how to kill these things is covered in tattoos of them and thinks they’re cool as hell. but. i don’t know. it just always feels like it’s deeper than that. a deeper cut, i guess.” 

hermann nodded. somehow he knew that, with newt, if he just let them keep talking, they’d find an explanation eventually. 

“it’s kinda… well. y’know, with me being trans, and queer, and just generally weird, it can be kind of sensitive with words like freak. feels like someone’s noticed something’s off. even though i don’t care anymore, obviously, and everyone knows these things about me, but it just…” their head shot up, suddenly, looking across the lab into the corner of their side. “hold on.” they hopped up, trotting off somewhere hermann couldn’t see. it was only a few seconds before a loud “ah!”, and then newt was back, falling into the couch and patting the seat next to them. hermann took the cue, moving over to sit next to newt as they picked through a big folder full of seemingly random bits of paper. 

then they pulled out a journal, and it made sense. there were printed pictures hanging from the side, haphazardly stuffed in between the pages. 

“you got pictures printed?” 

“yeah, man. i still thought disposable cameras were the shit in like 2008. remember them? you probably don’t, you were too busy being boy genius and turning into an old man by the age of 20, right?” they grinned, still sifting through paper to find more bits and pieces. 

then they dropped the folder, giving up, and opened the journal instead. it was a mess, parts paint and parts glue and about 50% photograph. some of them had words scratched into them, scrawled over in paint and marker pen, and some had arrows round the side pointing at people hermann couldn’t recognise. the one person hermann could recognise was newt. in each picture their hair was a new colour, a new cut, and a new piercing appeared on their face. hermann could still see scars if he looked close enough, and newt still kept their septum retainer in pretty much all the time (a ring was too risky in a lab full of sharp things).

newt just tapped their own face on the photos. “this journal is from like 2008, so i was 18.” they smiled at the pictures, running a hand through their hair. they pointed at a photo, their hair a wave of pink and purple flowing down one side of their head. “maybe i should do that again.”  
as they flipped through the pages, hermann could see newt’s mood fluctuate - one page coated in thick red paint, the next a photo of friends, then a poem about war, then a half finished painting of a lizard. 

the last picture in the journal was newt, sat on a beach, staring up into the camera. their hair was faded blue, cut short. a little wispy stubble was just visible on their chin, mouth an unintentional pout. newt grinned. “i started t like 6 months before this picture. pretty neat.” they slammed it shut. 

“uh, so. i showed you that because i was 18, and like 2 days after i turned 18 someone called me a freak, and it really fucked me up. i’m not sure why, ‘cause i expected it, really, but. i dunno. i was sensitive, and peak trans, and… looking back, it feels like the start of a never ending chain of abuse. the next month i went to a night club and got the shit beaten out of me, when i was 19 a gay guy pushed me off his balcony ‘cause i hadn’t told him i had a vagina, and, like. yeah. i guess him calling me a freak just pushed a button.” 

hermann was staring, blankly, at the closed journal. he wasn’t sure what to say. he, too, had had a fair share of utter bullshit, growing up, but somehow hearing newt talk about the things he’d endured pierced him deeper than any memory he had. 

“you are beautiful.” he said, without really thinking. newt raised an eyebrow. 

“you don’t have to validate me, herms. i know i’m fine and stuff, it just -“ but then hermann’s face was so close to theirs, and they hoped they weren’t misreading signals ‘cause hermann wasn’t really giving any, but then their lips were touching and newt felt like they were 16 again and getting their first kiss and electricity was shooting through their whole body and it stung. hermann was kissing back, so they assumed the non-existent signals had been correct, and the tingle in their fingers doubled when they touched their hand to hermann’s cheek. 

as they pulled away, hermann nodded. “i’m a freak, too.” 

newt grinned. “i know.”


End file.
